Saturday, March 1, 2008

I now officially know I'm old because I threw a party for a friend who was launching a little side-business venture, and I stayed at her place until about 2:00, and I had to go to work this morning and instead of being buoyed by adrenaline and staying up all day Saturday and repeating the same late night again because you can always sleep it off Sunday, I pretty much just crashed after work. Like, drool on the pillow, don't remember actually falling asleep while reading the news, old lady dozing off. I have friends who've either turned thirty or who are staring at thirty head on, and a few of them party, like, three our four nights a week (granted they're partying with college students who probably look up at them for being more than a fetus when The A-Team was in its prime and I think that's a little bit sketchy but this morning I dropped a particularly nice looking Shredded Wheat out of my Ziploc baggie of cereal into the feet area of my car and I had to REALLY talk myself down from fishing for it and blowing it off at a red light so I don't get to judge anyone again until tomorrow at least), and I just absolutely cannot do that anymore. I really just need to give into the inevitable and get my Murder, She Wrote boxed set and my lap blanket and call it a life.

The party itself wasn't too hard in terms of being tempted to eat cheese or meat, but the preparation for it was just awful. The night of Day 2 and all through yesterday (Day 3) I finally started realizing I couldn't just eat the meat and cheese anymore, and as Lunabella said in yesterdays' comments, it started to make me really cranky. The only way I got around it was to imagine the summer sausage I was cutting up as little baby pigs in a pile, and the melted cheese on top of the bruschetta was glue that would eventually make its way into my stomach and work its fiendish plan to hold my poop hostage for a week or so (you know that's how cheese rolls). All day yesterday I was just HUNGRY, despite having a pretty decent breakfast and lunch. I hadn't been hungry at all the two prior days, so I think it may have been more psychosomatic than anything. I'm hungry right now, too, but I think that mostly has to do with still being a trifle hung over from the glasses of wine my inebriated guest of honor kept asking me to finish for her and also sleeping through lunch. I should probably eat something.

I bought three very promising looking vegan cookbooks from Amazon--Vegan with a Vengeance, Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World, and Veganomicon--all by Isa Chandra Moskowitz, who is the host of the Post Punk Kitchen show on NYC cable access, and generally regarded to be an all around awesome vegan chef. The books kind of read like novels, so I'm excited to dig into one tonight. I'm going grocery shopping tomorrow, so I may try cooking again, hopefully with better results than lass month's misadventures.

Also, I didn't make this connection the other three days, but I also stopped drinking coffee the week before I stopped eating dairy, so I'm not sure which symptoms belong to caffeine withdrawal and which are dairy related. I have had some pretty spectacular side of the head headache bursts, which I'm guessing belong to caffeine, but the ongoing dizziness, listlessness, and feeling like nasty stuff is sort of surfacing and then disappearing from my body is likely dairy related. I'm still not sure if I believe if detox really happens like that, so take it for what you think it's worth.

3
comments:

You're my hero. Giving up CHEESE and CAFFEINE? I would be on the top story in my hometown after a day or two of totally giving up dairy. But it is my crack. You're doing great and you'll have to tell us about the recipes.

It gets easier. For me - the "it tastes good" became a non-issue. As you said - stopped up POOP - became a big motivation. Headache became another other. Acne became an issue - when I discovered that it was possible to not have any at all. It is funny that Lori mentioned Crack - my thought process is Heroin - have never tried it - but assume that it must make you feel wonderful or people wouldn't get addicted to it. So, when these "situations" come up - I think - "and I wouldn't do heroin either. . ." Might be a little dramatic - but that's what I tell myself - every time.

I recently came across your blog and have been reading along. I thought I would leave my first comment. I don't know what to say except that I have enjoyed reading. Nice blog. I will keep visiting this blog very often.